be very unlikely that we should find evidence of any direct notice of the decree as in the cases of the two others. But there seems to be absolutely no evidence which could cause one to doubt that a rule declared by the Church as to a matter essentially bound up with a sacrament, which formed part of the necessary religious practice of the nation, would have been unhesitatingly accepted by the nation by reason of the mere fact that the universal Church had declared it. As there are such strong grounds for holding that the rule only solemnly declares an obligation upon priests which the nation had always believed to lie upon them, one would not expect to find any overt acceptance of the rule. Again, it is important to remember that the rule itself concerned priests mainly and that, undoubtedly, they were bound by it, and we see from the English canons re-enacting it the severe penalties to which they became liable in the ecclesiastical courts in England for any breach of it. Therefore, the disregard of it by the civil courts would have caused a perpetual conflict between these two tribunals even where the former was only exercising the jurisdiction which rightfully belonged to it, besides the fact that it would have so sharply conflicted with the religion practised by the nation. The question of jurisdiction over clerks transgressing ecclesiastical law was entirely in the hands of the Church. The "Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission, 1883", to which we have already alluded, tells us that "ecclesiastical jurisdiction in its widest sense covered all the ground of ecclesiastical relations, persons, properties, rights and remedies: clergymen in all their relations". But the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts extended even much further, including as it did the province of marriage, and that of probate coupled with the devolution of movable property in cases of intestacy. Within this latter province there would have been, perhaps, more than in any other province within the jurisdiction of any court, occasion for desiring to know something that might have transpired under the seal of confession. Pollock and Maitland's "History of the Laws of England" tells us that intestacy was regarded with an abhorrence somewhat akin to that with which a death without sacramental confession was regarded. This may probably be a considerable overstatement, but it serves to show that this province was, at